A judge dismissed a Christian father’s court petition to recover his young daughter, whose custody was awarded to her kidnapper.
Christian Daily International-Morning Star News reported that Shahbaz Masih of Sattukatla in Pakistan’s Punjab province is trying to get back his 13-year-old daughter. Masih said his daughter was abducted July 29 by a 30-year-old Muslim man.
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Masih said police told him Aug. 1 that his daughter entered a statement in court that she had willingly converted to Islam and married the kidnapper.
Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry is helping the girl’s family with the legal battle.
In Pakistan, which is predominantly Muslim, the national minimum age of marriage for a Christian is 18. However, Islam’s sharia law allows Muslim girls to be married at much younger ages.
World Watch
According to Christian Daily-Morning Star, “Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan — some as young as 10 — are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic ‘marriages’ and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say.”
Pakistan is No. 8 on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the 50 places most difficult to be a Christian.
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